As world's eyes turn to Vietnam, vast change seen

Posted: Wednesday, November 15, 2006

HANOI, Vietnam - The Asia-Pacific summit will draw the world's most powerful heads of state and a flood of journalists to Vietnam, which is seizing an opportunity it has thirsted for: a turn in the global spotlight.

Hanoi's five-star hotels were booked months ago, with room rates tripling or more for the 10,000 people accompanying President Bush, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other leaders to the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit Nov. 18-19.

The challenges - and opportunities for snafus - are enormous for Vietnam, which has never had an event this big.

"Just hosting a U.S. presidential visit is a big deal that stretches the logistical capacity of any city in the world," said Adam Sitkoff, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi. "Having heads of state from the U.S., China, Japan and Russia all at the same time is a monumental undertaking."

But if all goes well, Vietnamese officials hope the world will see a country that has left war far behind and is plunging headlong into the future.

"It's a huge international coming-out party for Vietnam," said Virginia Foote, president of the U.S.-Vietnam Trade Council.

In the darkest times after American troops pulled out in 1975 and the communists united the country, Vietnam was cut off by an economic embargo and stagnating under a rigid, centrally planned economy. People lined up to wait for rice and other goods and faced police action if they sold anything on the free market.

Those days - dubbed the "subsidized period" - are the subject of a popular museum exhibit where the younger generation can learn about their elders' hardships.

Two-thirds of Vietnam's population is under 30 and has no firsthand memories of the bombs that once rained down on Hanoi and across the countryside. They are coming of age in a city on the move, with new hotels and office towers springing up everywhere.

The APEC invasion will snarl Hanoi's streets, already clogged with a sea of motorbikes and a growing number of cars, status symbols for the emerging nouveau riche, who are eagerly taking up golf and buying expensive cosmetics and designer labels.

As Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economy, Vietnam is drawing attention from investors around the world. The World Trade Organization's newest member is working to bring its commercial laws and regulations in line with global standards.

But a measure to normalize relations between the U.S. and Vietnam failed to get a necessary two-thirds majority to pass the U.S. House of Representatives under a rush procedure that allowed for limited debate. Republican supporters said they will try again today.

One of the world's last communist countries, Vietnam has embraced capitalism with a vengeance after the government's first tentative steps in the 1990s to loosen tight economic controls and open up to the outside world.

The fledgling stock market is booming. Everyone seems to be selling something, from CEOs in the emerging private sector to street peddlers hawking mangoes.

Signs welcoming APEC delegates near Hanoi's airport bear logos from General Motors, Microsoft and Samsung. Even the banks of historic Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi's soul, have been adorned with small APEC billboards sponsored by Canon, which recently opened the world's largest computer printer factory in Vietnam.

"Security and traffic are our two biggest challenges," said Le Van Duc, deputy director of the Hanoi Public Works Department, which has been installing new traffic lights and signs and has spent $400,000 to brighten the streets with flowers.

Security agents have been hovering around the Sheraton Hotel, which will host Bush, the second U.S. president to visit Hanoi, which gave Bill Clinton a rousing welcome 2000. With Democrats seizing control of Congress after last week's midterm elections, Bush will arrive in Vietnam politically weakened.

The timing of the weeklong APEC meetings couldn't be better for Vietnam. Foreign investment is surging, rising 41 percent in the last year. Measured as a percentage of per capita gross national product, it is higher than in booming China.

Over the last five years, annual per capita income has doubled, and GDP has grown at an average of more than 7 percent. The value of shares traded on the stock market has jumped 10-fold in just the last year.